Articles by A. A.

Glitches on the Road to MAGA
While the farcical Kavanaugh confirmation hearings dominated the news cycle for the past couple of weeks, little mention was made of a disturbing economic headline – the August US trade deficit. Despite all the bluster from the Trump Administration about “winning trade wars” and “trade wars are easy”, America’s trade imbalances for August were the highest ever and its deficit with its most contentious partner – China – reached an all-time high.

Bi-directional trade bazooka [PT]

Some highlights, or low lights, for the Trump Administration and the clueless economic nationalists were:

August imports of industrial supplies and materials ($49.7 billion) were the highest since December 2014 ($51.8 billion).

A Piece of Paper Alone Cannot Secure Liberty
The idea of a constitution and/or written legislation to secure individual rights so beloved by conservatives and among many libertarians has proven to be a myth. The US Constitution and all those that have been written and ratified in its wake throughout the world have done little to protect individual liberties or keep a check on State largesse.

Sound money vs. a piece of paper – which is the better guarantor of liberty? [PT]

Instead, in the American case, the Constitution created a powerful central government which eliminated much of the sovereignty and independence that the individual states possessed under the Articles of Confederation.
While the US Constitution contains a “Bill of

Bombs Away!
Two recent articles* have again demonstrated that the greatest “terrorist” entity on earth are not the bogymen – Russia, China, Iran, North Korea – so often portrayed by Western presstitutes and the American government, but the United States itself!

This is an old cartoon, but still a good one. It perfectly describes the trigger-happy Western political class and the depth of its “thinking”. By happenstance we recently reviewed the Libya intervention (Libya is the failed state in the Maghreb that used to be one of the most prosperous countries in Africa). The eccentric tinpot dictator Gadaffi was not necessarily likable, although he was certainly entertaining from afar. But everything we were told by the press about his actions

Redefined Terms and Absurd Targets
At one time, the Federal Reserve’s sole mandate was to maintain stable prices and to “fight inflation.” To the Fed, the financial press, and most everyone else “inflation” means rising prices instead of its original and true definition as an increase in the money supply. Rising prices are a consequence – a very painful consequence – of money printing.

Voting with their Feet
A couple of recent articles have once more made the case, at least implicitly, for political decentralization as the only viable path which will begin to solve the seemingly insurmountable political, economic, and social crises which the Western world now faces.

Fracture lines – tax and regulatory competition allows people to “vote with their feet” – and they certainly do. [PT]

In the last few months, over 3,000 millionaires have fled the hopelessly corrupt and bankrupt state of Illinois. When asked, 47% of Illinoisans would like to leave the state which, over the last decade, has seen over a half million of its residents flee. Naturally, this exodus has exacerbated the Land of Lincoln’s financial straits to

Contradictory Palaver
The recent hullabaloo among President Trump’s top monetary officials about the Administration’s “dollar policy” is just the start of what will likely be the first of many contradictory pronouncements and reversals which will take place in the coming months and years as the world’s reserve currency continues to be compromised. So far, the Greenback has had its worst start since 1987, the year of a major stock market reset.

A modern-day reenactment of the famous “our currency, your problem” play that went over so extremely well in the 1970s… [PT]

The brief firestorm was set off by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin who said in response to the dollar’s recent slide:

“Obviously, a weaker dollar is good for us, it’s good because it has to do with trade and

A Brief Outbreak of Sanity
After nearly a year of gaffes, provocations, threats, bombings, destabilizing arms deals, and, most recently, the disastrous decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, the sanest member of the Trump Administration, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, appeared to have begun a new and promising diplomatic direction in relations with tiny, beleaguered North Korea.

Oil man and uranium man – will there be an exchange of binoculars soon? As regular readers know, after studying numerous official photographs of Kim, we have concluded that what he really wants is a pair or two of really spiffy new binoculars. International diplomacy is not exactly rocket science, one just needs to be a little observant. And giving him new field glasses would be a lot

Rude Interruptions
As long as the US Empire can be funded and maintained on the backs of its taxpaying public, the chance of a deescalation of tensions not only on the Korean peninsula, but throughout the world are practically nil. And as long as the nation’s current interventionist ideology holds sway, it will only be through a financial meltdown that the role of the US as global policeman will come to a much-needed end.

Hamhung, North Korea, June 30, 1950; an example of minor collateral damage suffered by North Korea during the behavior-modification police action of the early 1950s. Let us be clear that we have no sympathy for the hereditary Stalinist dynasty/junta oppressing the people of North Korea. Nevertheless, it should be crystal clear by now why military interventionism is

Expensive Politics
Instead of a demonstration of its overwhelming military might intended to intimidate tiny North Korea and pressure China to lean on its defiant communist neighbor, President Trump and the West should try to learn a few things from China.

President Trump meets President Xi. The POTUS reportedly had a very good time in China. [PT]
Photo credit: AP

The President’s trip to the Far East came on the heels of the completion of China’s 19th National Congress, where the current president Xi Jinping has cunningly positioned himself as China’s unchallenged leader. In an address at the opening of the Congress, Xi cautioned that the country faced “challenges” that are “extremely grim” yet, despite these, the nation’s future is “extremely bright.”*
While Western politicos and

Communism: An Unmitigated Disaster
This October marks the centennial anniversary of the Bolshevik takeover of Russia and the establishment of Soviet-style Communism which tragically, for the Russian people, would last for some seventy interminable years. Not only did the Soviet regime liquidate and imprison millions, but its idiotic system of central planning impoverished the country, turning it into an economic basket case, the effects of which reverberate to this day.

The communist monster – Vladimir Ulyanov, a.k.a. Lenin. The New York Times was brimming with apologias for communism on the occasion of the revolution’s centennial this year. Apparently word was given to the vast hordes of Marxists still infesting society that they were free to use the platform to publish editorials

Cryptic Pronouncements
If a world conflagration, God forbid, should break out during the Trump Administration, its genesis will not be too hard to discover: the thin-skinned, immature, shallow, doofus who currently resides in the Oval Office!

The commander-in-chief – a potential source of radiation?

This past week, the Donald has continued his bellicose talk with both veiled and explicit threats against purported American adversaries throughout the world. In a cryptic exchange with reporters during a dinner with military leaders, he quipped:

You guys know what this represents? Maybe it’s the calm before the storm. It could be the calm… before… the storm.*

A reporter asked if he meant Iran or Isis which the POTUS responded, “you’ll find out.” Instead of threatening supposed

Misguided Enthusiasm
While not a jubilee year, last week marked the 230th anniversary of the US Constitution. Naturally, most of its devotees enthusiastically praised the document which by now is seen on a par with Holy Writ itself.

The constitutional convention in Philadelphia, anno 1787. Things have gone downhill ever since. Many – though not all – of those taking part in the convention were members of the moneyed elite, the land speculators who had instigated the war of independence when King George foolishly tried to keep them from expanding their speculative activities to the West with his ill-conceived edict of 1763. Having won the war, they were no longer constrained by the edict, but they couldn’t leave well enough alone… sitting on their laurels apparently just wasn’t their

Improving the World, One Death at a Time
If anyone should have any questions about whether the United States of America is not the most aggressive, warlike, and terrorist nation on the face of the earth, its latest proposed action against the supposed rogue state of North Korea should allay any such doubts.

Throughout history, the problem with empires has always been the same: no matter how stable and invincible they appeared, eventually they ran into “imperial overstretch”. At some point, the exercise of maintaining an empire simply becomes unaffordable. The deterioration usually happens very gradually, so the ruling elites will always be reluctant to admit that something needs to change. Students of history always observe with astonishment that no-one seems to be learning from

Crazed Decision
The Los Angeles City Council’s recent, crazed decision* to replace Christopher Columbus Day with one celebrating “indigenous peoples” can be traced to the falsification of history and denigration of European man which began in earnest in the 1960s throughout the educational establishment (from grade school through the universities), book publishing, and the print and electronic media.

Christopher Columbus at the Court of the Catholic Monarchs (a painting by Juan Cordero). Columbus was born in the Republic of Genoa in Italy, but made his exploration voyages (four in all) under the auspices of the Spanish crown. In 1492, just after Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain had reconquered the last Muslim outpost in Spain, they finally agreed to make a deal with Columbus and funded

Vladimir the Great Sums Up Pope Francis the Fake
Vladimir Putin has once again demonstrated why he is the most perceptive, farsighted, and for a politician, the most honest world leader to come around in quite a while. If it had not been for his patient and wise statesmanship, the world may have already been embroiled in an all-encompassing global conflagration with the possibility of thermonuclear destruction.

Vladimir Putin is sizing up Pope Francis with his “good grief, where did they find that one” stare. Since the East-West schism of AD 1054 there have been differences between the Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox Church, one of which concerns the issue of papal primacy (which the Orthodox Church rejects, although it would be prepared to acknowledge the Pope as a primus inter

When Germany Was Great!
Ever since the start of the deliberately conceived “migrant crisis,” orchestrated by NWO elites, the news out of Germany has been, to say the least, horrific. Right before the eyes of the world, a country is being demographically destroyed through a coercive plan of mass migration. The intended consequences of this – financial strain, widespread crime and property destruction, the breakdown of German culture – will continue to worsen if things are not turned around.

The Holy Roman Empire in 1789 AD. At the time, Germany was a patchwork of countless independent principalities, duchies, city states, bishoprics and other statelets. This was a glorious time, as citizens could very easily vote with their feet if they were unhappy with their rulers. Keep in mind,

The Looming Last Gasp of Indoctrination?
The inevitable collapse of the student loan “market” and with it the take-down of many higher educational institutions will be one of the happiest and much needed events to look forward to in the coming months/years. Whether the student loan bubble bursts on its own or implodes due to a general economic collapse, does not matter as long as higher education is dealt a death blow and can no longer be a conduit of socialist and egalitarian nonsense for the inculcation of young minds.

Beating the War Drums at the UN
It must now be a prerequisite of those who become an American ambassador to the UN to possess certain characteristics and traits, the most important of which are rabid warmonger, child killer, and outright liar.

As anyone who is in possession of more than three brain cells well knows, these warmongering psychopaths couldn’t care less about the victims they use for their war propaganda. Their crocodile tears and somber faces are 100% fake – and their record speaks for itself. Every single military intervention of recent years has done nothing but create chaos and misery for millions, not to mention blowback of ever more grotesque proportions, ranging from incessant terror attacks to a veritable flood of refugees inundating the West. Never before in

Convocation of the Clueless
The Trump Administration has presented the first part of its plan to overhaul a number of Wall Street financial regulations, many of which were enacted in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. The report is in response to Executive Order 13772 in which the US Treasury Department is to provide findings “examining the United States’ financial regulatory system and detailing executive actions and regulatory changes that can be immediately undertaken to provide much-needed relief.”*

Neo gets a dose of financial system red-pilling. [PT]

In release of the first phase of the report, Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin stated:

“Properly structuring regulation of the U.S. financial system is critical to achieve the administration’s goal of sustained economic

Pushing the Global Warming Scam
Two of Europe’s greatest contemporary enemies recently got together to compare notes and discuss how they were going to further undermine and destabilize what remains of the Continent’s civilization. Pope Francis and German Chancellor Angela Merkel met on June 17, in the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace to discuss the issues which will be raised at a Group of 20 summit meeting in Hamburg, from July 7-8.

Preparing for the G-20 gab fest: Pope Francis and Angela Merkel, two of the most harmful busybodies and world improvers of modern times.
Photo credit: Credit Ettore Ferrari / European Pressphoto Agency

The Vatican said that Frau Merkel and the Pope discussed “the need for the international community to combat poverty, hunger, terrorism and climate

Upholding a Well-Worn Tradition
Not surprisingly, Donald Trump has followed in the infamous footsteps of his presidential predecessors in the transition from candidate to chief executive. Invariably, every candidate for the presidency makes a whole host of promises, the vast majority of which are horrible and typically only exacerbate the problems they attempt to resolve.

With respect to trade, Donald Trump has adopted a position that is essentially indistinguishable from the 17th century French Mercantilism of Jean-Baptiste Colbert. It is a sure way to enrich a selected few to the detriment of the masses. At the same time, protectionism seems to superficially “make sense” to many people whose understanding of economics is not exactly the best, to put it politely (admittedly, in order

Papal Delusions
The purported pope of the Catholic Church recently attacked “libertarianism.” As a number of theologians have ably shown, Jorge Bergoglio, a.k.a Pope Francis, cannot be a legitimate pope, since he was neither ordained as a priest or consecrated as a bishop in the traditional Catholic rite of Holy Orders. And since he is not a bishop, he cannot be “Bishop of Rome” – a prerequisite for being the head of the universal Church.

The collectivist pope Francis – what a contrast to the revered John Paul II, who not only tirelessly argued in support of individual liberty, but had a firm grasp of economic issues as well (we have contrasted their economic views in “A Tale of Two Popes”). John Paul II realized that the Church had to stand up in defense of the free market economy

No Shouts of Joy from Kim Jong-Un
On April 28, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told the U.N. that North Korea “must dismantle its nuclear missile programs” before the US “can even consider talks.”*
Sounds reasonable.
Why hasn’t the Kim Jong-Un regime responded with open arms and shouts of joy for this generous and fair-minded proposal from Uncle Sam?

One probably has to catch Kim on a good day. Here he is visiting North Korea’s new bread-roll auto-fac and evidently he’s enjoying himself. Presumably, he’s also feeling reasonable.

Maybe it is because North Korea not only has first-hand knowledge of US “diplomacy,” but it can point to the grisly consequences that happen to regimes that do not have nuclear capabilities when they fall out of favor with Washington’s war mongers. Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria are just some recent examples.
Nor does North Korea have to look around the globe for what the US does to nations without nuclear arsenals, but can recall events which took place not so far away.
For more than a decade, America mercilessly pulverized the little, defenseless country of Vietnam. Despite the destruction and mass murder inflicted, it was to no avail, except of course to line the pockets of arms manufactures while American citizens were drained of their wealth and blood.

A Disastrous Decision
It is altogether fitting that the US attack on a Syrian airport, the dropping of a MOAB on defenseless Afghanistan, and the potential outbreak of nuclear war with North Korea have all come in the very month in which an American president led the nation on its road to empire one hundred years earlier.

Donald Trump and Woodrow Wilson, who waged “The War to End All Wars” – which turned out to be such a glaring misnomer that it will stand forever as an example of the deceitfulness of war propaganda. Donald Trump wants to save incubator babies or something…

President Trump’s aggressive actions and all of America’s previous imperialistic endeavors can ultimately be traced to Woodrow Wilson’s disastrous decision to bring the country into the First World War on April 6, 1917. This month, therefore, should be one of national mourning for the decision to enter that horrific conflict changed America and, for that matter, the world for the worse.
Had the US remained neutral, the war would most likely have come to a far quicker and more politically palatable conclusion. However, the entry of America on the Entente side prolonged the conflict and extended its economic and political destruction to such a degree that the Old Order could not be put back together again.

Opportunity Cost Rears its Head
Last Thursday’s wanton attack on a Syrian air field by the US and its bellicose actions toward North Korea have brought the real cost of candidate Trump’s landslide victory last November to the forefront.

It didn’t take long for Donald Trump to drop his non-interventionist mask. The decision was likely driven by Machiavellian considerations with respect to domestic conditions, but that doesn’t make it any better.

Unlike most laymen, accountants, and financial analysts, economists look at cost differently. For economists, cost or more specifically, “opportunity cost,” means “a benefit that a person could have received, but gave up, to take another course of action. Stated differently, opportunity cost represents an alternative given up when a decision is made.”
Such thinking can be roughly applied to the political realm. In the case of last fall’s US Presidential election, the cost of Donald Trump’s unexpected victory was not the money spent on the campaign, but the diffusion (hopefully, only temporary) of the growing anti-Establishment groundswell that was percolating not only in America, but across the globe.

Dashed Hopes
Despite widespread optimism among libertarians, classical liberals, non-interventionists, progressive peaceniks and everybody else opposed to the US Empire that some of its murderous reins may finally be pulled in with the election of Donald Trump, it appears that these hopes have now been dashed.

Liberty… some of it is still above water, but definitely not as much as there could or should be.*

While the hope for a less meddlesome US foreign policy is not completely extinguished and would never have existed had the Wicked Witch of Chappaqua been elected, so far a number of President Trump’s foreign policy actions have been little different from those of his recent predecessors.

Always keep in mind that it ultimately does not matter whether one likes or dislikes Donald Trump, or whether he fulfills anyone’s expectations (naturally, he is fair game for criticism – we want to emphasize something else here). The moment the Democrats decided to nominate the Wicked Witch of Chappaqua as their presidential candidate, citizens with an IQ above room temperature and a healthy survival instinct simply no longer had a choice. If the Republicans had nominated a string-operated talking rag doll, it would still have been every American’s sacred duty to elect it.

Trump vs. the Deep State
If there had been any doubt that the land of the free and home of the brave is now a totalitarian society, the revelations that its Chief Executive Officer has been spied upon while campaigning for that office and during his brief tenure as president should now be allayed.

Image adapted from the cover of “Deep State #5” – depicting an assassin from the future

President Trump joins the very crowded list of opponents of the American State which includes the Tea Party, tax resistors, non-interventionists, immigration opponents, traditional family advocates, and a host of others who have been spied upon, persecuted and badgered by federal “intelligence” authorities.
While Congress conducted some feeble hearings and investigations of the shenanigans of the US spy agencies during the interminable Obummer Administration, no real action or reform was taken to reign in the eavesdropping and spying by the national security state on American citizens.
Hopefully, the surveillance of President Trump will change his outlook on the US “intelligence community” especially in regard to those courageous souls who have spoken out and risked life and limb to alert the public about their rulers’ nefarious activities.

Goodbye, Socialist Paradise
Nestle USA has announced that it will move its headquarters from Glendale, California, to Rosslyn, Virginia, taking with it about 1200 jobs. The once Golden State has lost some 1690 businesses since 2008 and a net outflow of a million of mostly middle-class people from the state from 2004 to 2013 due to its onerous tax rates, the oppressive regulatory burden, and the genuine kookiness which pervades among its ruling elites.*

There has been a remarkable reversal of flow of people and businesses – but California’s ruling elite seemingly remains utterly clueless as to why this is happening and/or doesn’t seem to care. When people and businesses flee from such a well-developed region with such a favorable climate, one should realize that something is probably very wrong. Here is a link to a comprehensive study of the flight of businesses and a million middle class people (net) since 2008 (PDF).

A clueless Glendale official is apparently unconcerned about the financial repercussions of Nestle’s departure saying that it was “no big deal” and saw it as an “opportunity,” whatever that means!
The stampede of businesses out of what was once the most productive and attractive region in all of North America demonstrates again that prosperity and individual freedom are best served in a political environment of decentralization.

No Country Can be Made Great by Devaluation
John Connally, President Nixon’s Secretary of the Treasury, once remarked to the consternation of Europe’s financial elites over America’s inflationary monetary policy, that the dollar “is our currency, but your problem.” Times have certainly changed and it now appears that the dollar has become an American problem.

Richard Nixon and his treasury secretary John Connally. The latter is today mainly remembered for his remark on the dollar, which presumably gave European finance ministers a few nightmares at the time. Nixon defaulted on the gold exchange standard in 1971, which effectively ended the Bretton Woods agreement and led to the whole world adopting a fiat money standard. Nixon’s announcement of the default stands to this day as a textbook example of government lies and hypocrisy, garnished with a more than generous helping of economic illiteracy. It seems unlikely that he realized that his actions on that day would give birth to the greatest credit bubble in history, but they did.
Photo via twitter.com

In a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, the soon to be 45th President of the United States believes that the greenback’s strength – up some 25% against a broad basket of currencies since 2014 – is now “too strong,” “killing us,” and has hurt companies trying to compete overseas.

Neo-Marxist Pope Francis Argues for Global Central Bank
As the new year dawns, it seems the current occupant of St. Peter’s Chair will take on a new function which is outside the purview of the office that the Divine Founder of his institution had clearly mandated.

Neo-Papist transmogrification. We highly recommend the economic thought of one of Francis’ storied predecessors, John Paul II, which we have written about on previous occasions. In “A Tale of Two Popes” and “Papal Eco-Hysteria”, we have contrasted Francis and John Paul II and quoted from the latter’s seminal encyclical “Centesimus Annus”, which probably contains the most clear-headed thinking on human liberty and economics that has ever emerged from the Vatican. Francis strikes us as a throwback to a completely discredited and dangerous ideology by comparison. Lately he is even calling for the establishment of a global central bank!

Besides being a self proclaimed expert on global warming and a vociferous advocate of societal-wrecking mass immigration, it looks as if Pope Francis has entered the realm of global economics specifically, international monetary policy.